Salon Newsreal | Northern Ireland: Who will police the police?

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Photo by Ed Kashi
Northern Ireland: Who will police the police?
The peace accord has forgotten to address one key issue: The repressive ways of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
BY MARGARET SPILLANE | While I was in Belfast during the summer of 1995 -- right in the middle of the Northern Ireland cease-fire that miraculously lifted bomb-sniffing dogs and armored soldiers from everyday life there -- the Northern Ireland Office bankrolled a series of festive billboards. Splashed across the signs were the closing words of native son Van Morrison's "Coney Island": "Wouldn't it be great if it could be like this all the time?"
On TV spots, Morrison's "Days Like This" played over images of two little boys -- one Protestant, one Catholic -- frolicking together near the magnificent North Antrim coast. "Everything falls into place with the flick of a switch,/Yes my mama told me there'd be days like this."
Belfasters, in war or peace one of the most extroverted and friendly urban populations anywhere, appeared to be enjoying their city with gusto, gleefully driving through that summer's spectacularly Mediterranean weather on downtown streets that only months earlier had been a labyrinth of barricades and police checkpoints. Jokes abounded about how the Royal Ulster Constabulary, interrogation artists who had distinguished themselves as compressors of skulls and testicles, were now self-consciously shuffling around like beat cops, pointing out faulty taillights and writing parking tickets.
This charming picture of lethal enforcers suddenly beating their Heckler and Koch machine guns into ploughshares was, however, far away from reality. While tourists were busy discovering the delights of the newly relaxed-looking six counties and journalists ceasing to call Belfast's Europa Hotel the Beirut Hilton, the RUC was still making arrests the old-fashioned way. As civil rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson was told when she filed a criminal complaint against an officer for injuries inflicted on a client while in custody, "We've been doing whatever the fuck we want for 30 years, and 30 years from now we'll be doing the same." Another Nelson client, Michael Carragher (whose brother Fergal had been shot dead at a checkpoint), was beaten so severely while detained in one of the RUC's infamous "holding units" that the doctor who examined him told the interrogators that Carragher needed immediate hospitalization. The doctor's plea was ignored.
Nelson has filed thousands of criminal complaints against the RUC on behalf of such clients, and every one has been thrown out (though civil courts pay out huge damages daily for the same claims). She has received death threats from the RUC, and lies in bed at night wondering if her three children will witness what the children of her fellow human-rights lawyer Pat Finucane did: their parent murdered in a spray of death-squad bullets as the family sat down to dinner. After all, an RUC officer had predicted Finucane's death a few weeks before it happened.
It is for such reasons that Friday's cross-border referendum on the historic Northern Ireland peace accord is an occasion for vigilance as well as for hope. The agreement provides for a democratically elected Northern Ireland assembly; a North-South council of ministers empowered to create cross-border policies in such areas as education, environment, social welfare and economic development; possible early release for prisoners affiliated with Sinn Fein and those loyalist parties that sat at the negotiating table; the relinquishing by the Republic of Ireland of its constitutional claims to Ulster; demilitarization on all sides, from the British army to the loyalist and republican paramilitaries, within two years; and restructuring of the police.
However, these unprecedented fruits of cooperation could fall apart from within, Nelson told me recently, because "there's very, very little focus on human rights, and I don't think a political settlement can exclude human rights abuses."
N E X T+P A G E+| No reins on repression
PHOTO © ED KASHI

O N+O T H E R S I T E S Background on the peace accord at ABCNEWS.com T A B L E+T A L K Things are getting hot in the Lone Star state! Weigh in on Texas politics in the Politics area of Table Talk D A I L Y+Q U O T E Jesus ad campaign: "You're going to hell" R E C E N T L Y Kenneth Starr's sex appeal By Todd Pitock The independent counsel may be pursuing truth and justice. But he also may have an eye for some of the more down-to-earth things in life (05/19/98) The anatomy of a virtual conspiracy By Peter J. Ognibene Unable to defeat him at the polls, President Clinton's foes use the press to spread rumors, allegations, speculations and lies (05/18/98) A country amok By Jonathan Broder Indonesia is past the point of peaceful change (05/15/98) "A weapon so powerful, it will destroy the world" By Sarita Sarvate The nation of Buddha, the Veddas and Mahatma Gandhi wants to be a nuclear giant (05/15/98) Indian roulette By Jonathan Broder The world's largest democracy goes nuclear, and gambles that it can survive the sanctions coming down on its head (05/14/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		Northern Ireland: Who will police the police? The peace accord has forgotten to address one key issue: The repressive ways of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. BY MARGARET SPILLANE \| While I was in Belfast during the summer of 1995 -- right in the middle of the Northern Ireland cease-fire that miraculously lifted bomb-sniffing dogs and armored soldiers from everyday life there -- the Northern Ireland Office bankrolled a series of festive billboards. Splashed across the signs were the closing words of native son Van Morrison's "Coney Island": "Wouldn't it be great if it could be like this all the time?" On TV spots, Morrison's "Days Like This" played over images of two little boys -- one Protestant, one Catholic -- frolicking together near the magnificent North Antrim coast. "Everything falls into place with the flick of a switch,/Yes my mama told me there'd be days like this." Belfasters, in war or peace one of the most extroverted and friendly urban populations anywhere, appeared to be enjoying their city with gusto, gleefully driving through that summer's spectacularly Mediterranean weather on downtown streets that only months earlier had been a labyrinth of barricades and police checkpoints. Jokes abounded about how the Royal Ulster Constabulary, interrogation artists who had distinguished themselves as compressors of skulls and testicles, were now self-consciously shuffling around like beat cops, pointing out faulty taillights and writing parking tickets. This charming picture of lethal enforcers suddenly beating their Heckler and Koch machine guns into ploughshares was, however, far away from reality. While tourists were busy discovering the delights of the newly relaxed-looking six counties and journalists ceasing to call Belfast's Europa Hotel the Beirut Hilton, the RUC was still making arrests the old-fashioned way. As civil rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson was told when she filed a criminal complaint against an officer for injuries inflicted on a client while in custody, "We've been doing whatever the fuck we want for 30 years, and 30 years from now we'll be doing the same." Another Nelson client, Michael Carragher (whose brother Fergal had been shot dead at a checkpoint), was beaten so severely while detained in one of the RUC's infamous "holding units" that the doctor who examined him told the interrogators that Carragher needed immediate hospitalization. The doctor's plea was ignored. Nelson has filed thousands of criminal complaints against the RUC on behalf of such clients, and every one has been thrown out (though civil courts pay out huge damages daily for the same claims). She has received death threats from the RUC, and lies in bed at night wondering if her three children will witness what the children of her fellow human-rights lawyer Pat Finucane did: their parent murdered in a spray of death-squad bullets as the family sat down to dinner. After all, an RUC officer had predicted Finucane's death a few weeks before it happened. It is for such reasons that Friday's cross-border referendum on the historic Northern Ireland peace accord is an occasion for vigilance as well as for hope. The agreement provides for a democratically elected Northern Ireland assembly; a North-South council of ministers empowered to create cross-border policies in such areas as education, environment, social welfare and economic development; possible early release for prisoners affiliated with Sinn Fein and those loyalist parties that sat at the negotiating table; the relinquishing by the Republic of Ireland of its constitutional claims to Ulster; demilitarization on all sides, from the British army to the loyalist and republican paramilitaries, within two years; and restructuring of the police. However, these unprecedented fruits of cooperation could fall apart from within, Nelson told me recently, because "there's very, very little focus on human rights, and I don't think a political settlement can exclude human rights abuses." N E X T+P A G E+\| No reins on repression PHOTO © ED KASHI